5 Great Programs for Bloggers

Today I’m sharing 5 programs that I use for blogging and business. Some of these programs are also PC friendly so if you don’t use a Mac, stick around!

1. Evernote – Collect – Process and draft your blog posts. I can not sing the praises of Evernote enough. I truly depend on it every day. Evernote is a virtual notebook that you can access on your computer as well as from your smartphone. You can also access all of your notebooks from anywhere with an internet connection. If you haven’t tried Evernote, you should. It’s free and such a great tool.

2. Text Expander - Another handy little program. I’m actually using the free version right now and it’s working great for me! If you find yourself typing the same paragraph numerous times this is the tool for you! I use it for blogging, business and home.

How it works:

Create customized abbreviations for commonly used phrases, addresses or paragraphs.

I have snippets for:

Our home address

e-mail signatures for both my blog and business

Commonly used e-mail responses

Commonly misspelled words

Css or HTML code that I use often

“dummy” text for projects (Lorem Ipsum)

Entering the current date or time

My disclosure

Blog template for giveaways and reviews

Here’s a good example, when I write out our weekly menu I get really tired of writing the days of the week. I created a snippet so that when I type “Wweek” this appears:

I just found Mindmeister in the last month and I love it. I’ve tried other mind mapping programs in the past but I think I’ve found one I truly love. Mind mapping is a great tool to get your ideas out of your head and start organizing your thoughts. I’m using the free version right now and it allows me to have 3 mind maps which I currently use for my blogs and my business. If you have a hard time collecting your thoughts and organizing your ideas give mind mapping a try.

Another freebie – Slidepad is such a great little tool. Have you ever been working on something and wanted to just jot down a note quickly but you don’t want to have to navigate out of the program you are working on. Slide Pad is a little notebook that simply slides out from the side of your computer screen so you can jot your note down and get right back to work. You have to give it a try – it’s FREE!

Fetch has become my FTP (File Transfer Program). It is not free but it is extremely easy to use and reliable. I can pop in and out of my server quickly and upload files easily. I’ve tried other programs but found Fetch to be a very simple solution for me.

When I first got my Mac I spent hours looking through Apples Download site finding and trying out a bunch of programs (some you can purchase other are free) . If you have some free time take a look around the site there are lots of great programs that offer trials too. Apple Downloads.